Saturday, September 01, 2012

My morning started out with the BCG Certification 2-hour seminar. The main speakers were Dr. Thomas W. Jones, Rev. Dr. David McDonald, and Elissa Scalise Powell. However, we also heard from several other genealogists who had achieved certification. I was grateful for their candidness and insight. The entire application process was discussed in great detail, which provided me with a direction for my educational plan.I then attended "German Territories and Maps - You Can't Do Research Without Them" with Warren Bittner. Because of the confusing boundary issues in Germany, I was hoping the session would go a little more in-depth with how to locate German towns and records than it did. It was an interesting session nonetheless.I played hookie from my 2:00 and 3:30 sessions and hung out in the Exhibit Hall. I sat down at the FamilySearch Community Indexing Project booth and indexed two batches of Immigration & Naturalization Records. Because I indexed some records at the conference, I got to have my picture taken at Ellis Island. (They really should have a mirror to look at before they snap the photo - just a suggestion for future conferences).I was fortunate enough to get some face time with a few of the vendors, including Katie Chapman at Pentandra (makers of Geungle) and the folks at ResearchTies. I also talked to several of the educational vendors in preparation for my last session of the day ..."The Best Educational Plan for You" with Elissa Scalise Powell was incredibly informative, and Elissa was immensely helpful after the session in clarifying a couple of issues for me so I could make some decisions about where I wanted to go next from an educational standpoint (more on that later).

After the last session, I headed back to the Exhibit Hall for the door prize drawings. Unfortunately (but not surprisingly), I didn't win anything. However, FamilySearch celebrated the completion of the 1940 U.S. Census Community Indexing Project and thanked all the volunteers by bringing cupcakes! I call that a win.Tomorrow is another day ...

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About

Paralegal by day, but my alter ego is a Genealogist. I have been working on my genealogy in fits and starts since about 1990, when my grandfather passed away and I inherited his research. I have just begun working through the NGS Home Study Course, well on my way toward genealogy certification.